The Uses of Memory in the Pre-Modern Mediterranean

The Uses of Memory in the Pre-Modern Mediterranean, Mediterranean Seminar Winter 2018 Workshop, University of Notre Dame, February 2–3, 2018

Paper proposals and round-table participants are being sought for the Mediterranean Seminar’s two-day Winter 2018 Meeting, sponsored by the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame, 2 & 3 February, on the subject “The Uses of Memory in the Pre-Modern Mediterranean.”

Day One (February 2): Workshop
We invite abstracts of in-progress drafts of articles or book/dissertation chapters on any aspect of how scholars, poets, theologians, artists, etc. created, adapted, exploited, or transformed collective memory in the pre-Modern Mediterranean, broadly construed. Particularly welcome are papers

relating to the multi-religious environment of the region, including cross-confessional influence, relations, syncretism, and literary and/or artistic representations; or

papers that address the longue durée, methodology, or that are comparative in approach.

Papers from any relevant Humanities or Social Sciences discipline are welcome. Our Mediterranean is construed geographically as including southern Europe, the Near East and North Africa; however scholars who work on analogous themes in other periods and regions are encouraged to apply.

All North American-based scholars (or foreign scholars who will be in the US at this time) working on relevant material are encouraged to apply. Scholars from further abroad may apply but we cannot pay full travel costs. ABD PhD students, junior and non-tenure track faculty are particularly welcome to apply.

Day One will conclude with a keynote presentation by Sarah Savant (Agha Khan University; SOAS).

Day Two (February 2) will feature:

Two round-table conversations, focusing on questions such as: What is the role of forgetting in the making of Mediterranean memory? Does collective memory cross religious/linguistic/ethnic boundaries in the Mediterranean? To what extent does collective memory in the Mediterranean assume and normalize religious plurality, and to what extent does it undermine and subvert religious plurality?

A special working session on The Sea in the Middle, Part 2, a Mediterranean Studies course book and document reader by Thomas Burman, Brian Catlos, and Mark Meyerson (forthcoming from the University of California Press)

A second keynote presentation by Lucy Pick (University of Chicago)

Participants will be expected to attend the entire two-day symposium. Day-One Workshop presenters will be provided travel expenses and accommodations. Round-table presenters will receive a travel subvention.